First One Missing (13 page)

‘Oh, give over.’ She pulled the door to and his foot slid out of the way. ‘See ya,’ she trilled out of the open window, avoiding his face.

All the way home to Stoke Newington she heaped loathing upon herself. Why had she said that thing about loving and leaving? Since when did she use the phrase ‘see ya’? And was Pete right that people would suspect her of being the source of the leak? The thought that others might be looking at her and doubting her commitment and loyalty gave her an uncomfortable tugging sensation in the pit of her stomach.

She closed the window and leaned her forehead against the glass, hoping to cool her still-burning skin. She thought about the awkward afternoon at the Purvises’ house, remembering how anxiously Helen had offered around the drinks and the bowls of crisps and peanuts, and she felt a rush of sympathy for the grieving mother. It had clearly been a huge blow to find out the group was to lose the Botsfords. And then the news about the circumstances in which the Glover girl had been found, which must have brought back such terrible memories of Megan’s own death.

Every now and then Leanne was thankful she hadn’t been able to have children, so she’d never risk knowing the pain of losing one.

13

For the two days since the Megan’s Angels meeting, Emma had been in the grip of despondency.

‘For God’s sake, Mum, can’t you at least
pretend
to be interested?’ Jemima had yelled the night before after she’d broken off from a long story about her maths teacher to ask Emma what she thought, and her mother had just blinked at her, her face and mind completely blank.

It was the bombshell from the Botsfords that had thrown her, Emma thought. The idea that this option existed for them, to choose to exit their lives. It had never crossed her mind that this might be possible, that she might simply leave this life that had become impossible to her and start another one somewhere else where Grieving Mother wasn’t the first thing people saw. The thought of it – of being, just for an hour, a minute even, someone other than who she was – made her giddy.

She mentioned it to Guy only once. It was on the Saturday evening, when they’d been home from the Purvises’ for a few hours, and Caitlin was at a sleepover and Jemima in her room playing angry music loudly and doing whatever she did on her computer.

They were sitting side by side on the sofa and the television was on, although she couldn’t have said what show was playing. She doubted Guy knew either. She used to choose carefully which programmes to watch, arguing her case with Guy if he had other ideas (which he so often did). But now, unwilling to risk any unnecessary interaction, they both gravitated, without speaking, to whatever they felt the other would dislike least, so their television watching was a question of the lowest common denominator – featureless programmes that bled seamlessly from one to the other arousing neither interest nor passion. But on this evening Emma’s mind wasn’t on the screen where a harried nurse was leaning against a hospital wall, sobbing. Instead all she could think of was the Botsfords, and their seemingly miraculous escape.

‘What do you think about Fiona and Mark?’ she asked Guy, turning to face him for the first time in weeks. ‘What’s to stop us doing that? Starting again somewhere new?’

Guy looked at her, shocked, although whether at what she’d said or just the fact that she’d addressed him so directly, she couldn’t have said.

‘Their situation is completely different. They’re self-employed. They run their own business. They have no other children. They have the luxury of simply leaving everything behind. We don’t. What about my job? What about our parents? What about Jemima and Caitlin? They need continuity in their lives after everything that’s happened.’

Emma persevered. ‘But can you imagine it, Guy? The freedom?’

He turned back towards the television, shaking his head as if unable to believe what he’d just heard.

‘Tilly is dead, Emma. Even if we went to the fucking moon we’d still take that knowledge with us. At least here we’re surrounded by things she knew. Her bedroom is here. Her friends are here. We can keep a connection to her through the things and the places and the people she knew and loved. How can you even think of leaving her behind?’

That wasn’t what she’d meant, but when she tried to formulate the words to explain herself, she wasn’t sure they’d ever existed. Still, two days later, she couldn’t stop thinking about the Botsfords’ new bid for freedom. And she wasn’t the only one dwelling on it. Helen had been in touch yesterday, still upset about the break-up of the group.

‘Of course they must do what they think is best for them,’ she kept saying. ‘But I think they’re making a mistake. We need each other, all of us. We need each other’s support. Out there they’ll be completely alone.’

Now it was Monday, mid-afternoon, and Emma was still thinking about the whole thing as she attempted to tidy the kitchen in advance of the girls’ return from school. There was a time she’d have baked cakes or biscuits for them, so that they’d arrive back to the delicious smell of fresh-from-the-oven Victoria Sponge or trays of cookies oozing melted chocolate. But now it was as much as she could do to remember they were due and have a superficial clear-up, quickly stacking breakfast bowls in the dishwasher and wiping milk from the worktops.

She was just folding an empty cereal carton ready for the recycling when the landline rang. Emma hesitated. Usually the landline meant one of their parents, hers or Guy’s, all four of whom still clung to the notion of mobiles being for emergency use only. Either that or a cold-caller. PPI, double-glazing or someone asking if she’d had an accident at work. Still, it might be the school. Something to do with one of the girls. Maybe Ceci’s mum, Nancy, had forgotten it was her turn to do the school run. But when she finally located the phone – why was the cordless never where it was supposed to be – it was Denise, Guy’s Australian PA.

‘I’ve been trying his mobile,’ she apologized, ‘but it’s switched off. And the broker he was supposed to be seeing tomorrow morning has just pitched up. Apparently they changed the time. Only Guy’s obviously forgotten. He said he had to go home to sort out some stuff. Is he there?’

Emma found herself looking around the empty hallway, as if Guy might after all turn out to be at home.

‘No, sorry. Did he say what he needed to sort out?’

‘No, I don’t think so, but he left forty minutes ago, so he ought to be there by now.’

‘Sorry,’ Emma said again. It sounded so inadequate.

Still Denise stayed on the line, and Emma got the distinct impression there was something else she wanted to say.

‘Is everything OK?’ Emma asked eventually, unable to stand the silence.

‘Yes, fine, absolutely. It’s just …’

‘Just?’

‘Well, Guy’s been going early a lot recently, and I simply wanted to make sure everything was all right. With Caitlin and Jemima, I mean.’

‘Well, of course it is.’

Emma hadn’t meant for her voice to come out quite so sharp. She found it so hard these days to moderate herself.

‘Thanks, Denise. Guy’s just been finding it easier to work in his study at home at the moment. You know how it is.’

After Denise had hung up, Emma remained with the phone cradled in her hand, staring into space. Since Tilly’s death, Guy had often left the office early, getting home at around five so he could spend time with the girls before catching up on work in the evening. It was one of the perks of being a partner, she supposed. But according to Denise he had now started leaving even earlier – at quarter to three. Yet he wasn’t coming home. So where was he?

For a few seconds, her husband’s lost hours shimmered softly in Emma’s mind like a heat haze. Then reality kicked in. An affair.

At first she couldn’t tell how she felt about this new revelation. She had to turn the thing over and over in her head, searching for a reaction until finally one suggested itself.

She was jealous. But not in the way wives were supposed to be jealous.

Guy had something in his life he felt about strongly enough to lie. He had something outside of all this. Outside of the house with its memories and its oppressive silences that cushioned the airless rooms, outside of this little world where they would always remain The Parents Who’d Lost a Child. He had a separate life that didn’t revolve solely around grief and guilt. For a moment, she was immobilized with longing, just imagining how such a thing might feel.

And then came the crushing despair. Was there to be no one to share with her the burden of living without Tilly? Then she remembered that she and Guy weren’t really sharing it, and that they were each quite alone, despite the other. And now she was enraged rather than despairing. So he had found someone to offload on. No wonder he had been so dismissive when she talked about escaping their lives as the Botsfords were about to do. He had already found his escape right here.

Yet even through her anger she had to acknowledge her own culpability. She had closed herself off from him long before he followed suit. She remembered how he used to beg her to talk to him, to hold him, and how she tried to explain that she couldn’t, that Tilly’s death had opened up a hole inside her through which her feelings had drained out until all she had left was the trickle she kept for Jemima and Caitlin. After that he’d given up trying.

So maybe she shouldn’t blame him, and yet she did. How could he leave her to suffer alone?

Still torn between rage and despondency, she found herself moving towards her handbag.

Reaching into the zipped-up inside pocket, her fingers closed around the photograph. She’d promised herself she’d put it away for good after spending chunks of time lost in a trance, gazing at it with unseeing eyes. But something about it kept pulling her back. The picture of Tilly in her painting overall, her lips rounded into a perfect ‘O’ as if in the act of relating something important, if only Emma could hear it, her hair held in two perfectly symmetrical bunches by the thick yellow, red and orange bands, at exactly the same level.

‘They have to match, Mummy. If things don’t match I feel funny all day …’

Emma put the photograph down on the very same blond-wood table where Tilly had been pictured. Then she leaned forward until her forehead was resting on it and closed her eyes until the world went away.

14

The thing Sally hated about staying in hotels – well, one of the things – was that one got so bored with one’s clothes. She’d packed expecting the weather to break. Well, whoever heard of a whole week of sustained heat in this country? But she’d already been at the hotel five nights and still it was sweltering, with the result that she’d worn to death both the blue shift dress and the lemon-yellow spaghetti-strap one that she usually teamed with a cream jacket to give it a bit of gravitas. And so here she was in the garden of a historic pub by Hampstead Heath, wearing a long-sleeved, oyster-coloured top and feeling like she was being broiled alive.

Daniel Purvis was late and it was becoming harder and harder to keep his seat from the beady-eyed drinkers circling the tables, waiting to pounce the minute one became free. Though it was a Tuesday evening, the place was packed with the after-work crowd, drawn by the large beer garden. She’d already turned two people away, their eyebrows dipped in disapproval when she announced, ‘I’m saving it for a friend.’

She wasn’t sure she’d recognize him. After all, it was four years since she’d watched him and his ex-wife, Helen, hosting that emotional press conference that had kick-started this whole thing. Who could have foreseen then that Megan’s disappearance would be only the first act in what was turning out to be a prolific serial-killing spree?

She’d tried to interview Daniel at the time, but he’d refused to have anything to do with the press. As far as she knew the relationship between the exes was as amicable as these things get. Simon Hewitt had been dismissive the couple of times the subject had come up between them but that was only to be expected. So she’d been greatly surprised when she’d picked up her phone the previous day to find a call from the office to say that Daniel Purvis was trying to get hold of her.

Finally she spotted him, lurking by the gate from the car park, scanning the crowds with a helpless, lost air. She jumped up but didn’t dare wave for fear she might have damp patches under her arms. Instead she shouted his name. As he approached she came up with a quick mental description, as she always did automatically now, filing the details away in case she should need to slot him into a piece at some future time. Tallish, skinny, older than Helen and Simon, early fifties? Crumpled linen shirt, khaki chinos, pink face that really ought to be kept out of the sun. Rimless glasses that lent his face a hard, bureaucratic look, longish greying hair, receding and hanging in sweat-slicked strands, nylon man-bag slung over one shoulder.

‘Daniel? How lovely to meet you. Yes, it is warm, isn’t it? Inside? Well, of course, if it’s too hot for you out here.’

As she gathered up her things to head into the pub, the first tier of loitering drinkers jostled for position behind her like runners at a starting line.

Once seated in the cool, near-empty interior, nursing half a lager, Daniel Purvis seemed strangely disinclined to speak. He kept glancing around as if he’d never been inside a pub before.

‘What’s on your mind, Daniel?’ she prompted him eventually after they’d discussed the unusual weather until there was nothing further to say on the matter.

His face, already pink from the sun, flushed dusky rose.

‘I wanted to know,’ he began, staring furiously at the coaster he’d just picked up and was holding lightly between his surprisingly elegant fingers. ‘I want to know what you think about Simon Hewitt.’

Oh. She hadn’t been expecting that.

‘Why is that important?’ she asked, playing for time.

‘Look. I know you had a thing with him, but I don’t give a shit about that – although, frankly, I question your taste. I just need to know what you think about him. I need to know if you think he could be …’